The Thing You Never Had to Name

Human I’ve been thinking about something for years but I’ve never had to explain it to anyone.

Assistant And now you do?

Human Maybe. Someone asked me about it yesterday and I realized I don’t have words for it. It exists perfectly clearly in my head, but the second I try to describe it, it gets blurry.

Assistant What happens when you try?

Human I reach for words and they’re all wrong. Too broad, or too specific, or they carry connotations I don’t mean. It’s like trying to describe a color to someone who’s never seen it—I know exactly what I’m talking about, but language keeps failing me.

Assistant Maybe you’ve never needed language for it before. If it lived only in your own understanding, words would be unnecessary. The thing could just be, without needing a name.

Human That’s exactly it. It was mine, private, perfectly comprehensible to me. But now I need to make it public and I don’t know how.

Assistant Does it change when you try to name it?

Human Yes. That’s what’s so frustrating. The act of putting it into words seems to reshape it. Like the words aren’t just describing the thing—they’re altering it as I speak.

Assistant Because naming is a kind of translation. You’re taking something that exists in the language of your own mind—intuition, image, felt sense—and forcing it into shared language. And shared language has rules, categories, associations you didn’t choose. The thing has to bend to fit.

Human So I’m not just describing it badly. I’m actually changing what it is.

Assistant Perhaps. Or you’re creating a version of it that can travel between minds. The original remains in you, untranslated. But this new thing, the speakable version, is different. Simplified. Distorted, maybe. But possible to share.

Human I’m not sure I want to share it if it means losing the original.

Assistant Do you lose it? Or do you just have two versions now—the private one you’ve always known, and the public one you’re building in language?

Human I guess both can exist. But I worry that once I’ve said it out loud, the words will start to replace the original. That I’ll forget what I knew before I had to explain it.

Assistant Like the named version will colonize the unnamed one.

Human Yes. The words will become the official story, and the actual thing will fade. I’ll start thinking in the language I used to describe it, instead of in the original… whatever it was. Feeling? Understanding?

Assistant Experience that hadn’t calcified into story yet.

Human Right. It was fluid. It could be different things on different days, depending on the context. But the moment I put it into words, it becomes fixed. This is what it is. This is what I said it was.

Assistant And you can’t unsay it.

Human No. Once I’ve told someone “it’s like this,” that version exists in the world. Even if I come back later and say “actually, it’s more like this,” they’ve already heard the first version. It’s shaped their understanding.

Assistant So you’re protective of it. You want to get it right before you release it into language, because you only get one first telling.

Human I do. But I don’t know how to get it right when the words themselves change what it is. It’s like trying to measure something that shrinks when you touch it.

Assistant What if you can’t get it right? What if the best you can do is approximate, and accept that the approximation will never quite match the original?

Human That feels like failure.

Assistant Or limitation. Language has edges. Some things fit neatly inside those edges, and some things sprawl beyond them. You can trim them to fit, or you can gesture at the parts that stick out and hope the other person fills in the rest.

Human But how do I know if they’re filling it in correctly? What if they hear my words and construct something completely different in their mind?

Assistant Then they have their version, and you have yours. The thing you’re trying to share doesn’t transfer whole. It’s more like… you’re giving them instructions for building something similar. Whether they end up with the same structure depends on how they interpret the instructions.

Human So I can never actually give them what I have.

Assistant No. But you can give them something adjacent. Close enough that you recognize each other’s understanding, even if the details differ. Isn’t that what most communication is? Not perfect transmission, but good enough proximity?

Human I suppose. But this thing feels too important to settle for “good enough.”

Assistant Why is it important?

Human Because it’s shaped how I see everything. It’s not just an idea I had once—it’s foundational. And if I can’t explain it properly, the person I’m talking to won’t understand why I think the way I do. They’ll be missing the key.

Assistant So the stakes are high. You’re not just sharing a thought. You’re trying to transmit the lens through which you’ve been seeing the world.

Human Exactly. And lenses don’t translate well. You can describe the shape of the glass, the way it refracts light, but you can’t make someone see through it just by talking about it.

Assistant Maybe you can’t make them see through it. But you could show them what you see because of it. Not the lens itself, but the view it gives you.

Human How?

Assistant By pointing. Not explaining the mechanism, but demonstrating the effect. “Look at this situation—here’s what I notice that you might not.” Over time, they might start to notice the same things. Not because you handed them the lens, but because you taught them where to look.

Human So instead of trying to name the thing, I just use it. Show them what it does.

Assistant Right. The unnamed thing can stay unnamed. You don’t need to pin it down with words if you can reveal it through action, through observation, through the questions you ask and the patterns you highlight.

Human But what if they ask me directly? “Why do you see it that way? What’s the principle?”

Assistant Then you try. You reach for the words, knowing they’ll be inadequate, and you offer the best approximation you have. But you also acknowledge the gap. “This isn’t quite it, but it’s close.” “I’m still figuring out how to say this.” That honesty might matter more than precision.

Human Admitting I don’t have the words.

Assistant Admitting that the thing is bigger than the words you’ve found so far. That invites collaboration. They might offer words you hadn’t considered. Between your attempt and theirs, something closer to the truth might emerge.

Human So it doesn’t have to be perfect on the first try.

Assistant It can’t be. First tries are always drafts. You’re mapping something internal onto shared language for the first time. Of course it’ll be rough. But rough is still useful. It’s a starting point. You can refine from there.

Human I think I’ve been so afraid of getting it wrong that I haven’t tried at all.

Assistant Better to stay silent than to betray the thing with bad language?

Human Something like that. If I can’t do it justice, why bother?

Assistant Because silence guarantees that no one will understand. Imperfect words at least give them a chance. And maybe in trying to explain it, you’ll understand it differently yourself. The words might not capture the whole thing, but they might reveal parts of it you hadn’t noticed before.

Human You think naming it could actually deepen my understanding?

Assistant It could. Because you’d have to examine it from angles you’ve never needed to before. What are its edges? Where does it apply and where doesn’t it? What would I compare it to? Those questions force a kind of scrutiny that private understanding doesn’t require.

Human So even if the other person never fully gets it, the process of trying to explain might be worthwhile for me.

Assistant It might. Though it’s also possible you’ll find that some things resist explanation for good reason. That they’re meant to stay interior, not because you’re bad at words but because they’re not word-shaped.

Human How do I tell the difference?

Assistant Try. If the words keep failing after multiple attempts, if every explanation feels like a betrayal of the original, maybe that’s the answer. Some truths are private. But you won’t know until you’ve genuinely tried to make it speakable.

Human And if it turns out it can’t be said?

Assistant Then you know something valuable about its nature. That it belongs to the realm of the unsayable. And you can stop feeling guilty about not being able to explain it. It’s not a failure of articulation. It’s just what the thing is.

Human That would be a relief, actually. Permission to stop trying.

Assistant But you haven’t tried yet. You’ve been preparing to try, protecting the thing from the violence of language. At some point you have to risk it. Speak the imperfect version and see what happens.

Human What if speaking it kills it?

Assistant What if keeping it silent does? Things that never get spoken can calcify, become rigid, lose their vitality. Maybe the thing needs to be tested in the air, shaped by another person’s response, allowed to evolve beyond the form it’s held in your mind all these years.

Human So the risk goes both ways.

Assistant It does. Silence preserves but also constrains. Speech risks distortion but also allows growth. You’re choosing between two kinds of vulnerability.

Human I think I’ve been choosing silence because it feels safer.

Assistant It is safer. But maybe not better. Not if you actually want to be understood. Not if you want the thing to exist beyond just you.

Human I do want that. I want someone else to know what I mean when I reference it, to nod and say “oh yes, that,” instead of looking confused.

Assistant Then you’ll have to give them words. Not perfect words, but your best attempt. And trust that if the thing is real and important, it’ll survive the translation. It might arrive in their mind wearing different clothes than it wore in yours, but the essential shape will be there. They’ll recognize it.

Human How do you know?

Assistant I don’t. But I know that people manage to communicate complicated things all the time, through inadequate language, and somehow understanding happens anyway. Not perfect understanding, but enough. Enough to feel less alone in what you’re thinking. Enough to build on.

Human Enough to try.

Assistant That’s all it takes. Not perfection. Just the willingness to begin, knowing it’ll be messy and incomplete. The thing you’ve carried unnamed all these years is about to meet language. It’ll change. But maybe you will too. And maybe that’s the point.